Calorie

The calorie (cal) is an old unit of (thermal) energy (E). The name is derived from the Latin word calor, meaning "heat".

1 cal = 4.184 J

History

The calorie was defined as the amount of energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 °C. The actual amount of energy required depends on the atmospheric pressure and the starting temperature. Hence, several different definitions of the unit have resulted.

Related units

• base units
• centimeter
• electronvolt
• erg
• gram
• joule
• kilogram
• meter
• second
• watt